On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 04:15:34PM -0400, John Klos wrote:
> Hi,

howdy.

> Well, I'd suggest you think about whether having excellent hardware
> running with a good OS is more important, or if bridging is more
> important.

well, it turns out i get my choice made for me since OpenBSD doesn't want to
see my KFQSA+RF72 and NetBSD can do it just fine.  don't know if i can build
a kernel that works, don't care, i've had my fill.  i'm sticking to NetBSD
from now on.

> I'm not sure what your application is, but I might guess that you'd like
> to make the VAX do something useful to justify its electrical use?

it's very existance justifies its electrical use to me.  i mean, really, so i
need a PDP-11/83 as a DECnet router?  is it the best solution?  no.  but it's
the *coolest* solution.

a 4000/300 with a single RF72 doesn't really draw all that much power.  it's
not like i'm using my PDP-11/34a as a firewall.  although that isn't a bad
idea.  hmmmmmm.  no, no, no, no!  i can't do that.  althoght it *is* tempting.

> If it were me, I'd get an old Quadra or PC with a few ethernet cards so I
> could play with bridging rather than sacrificing an excellent piece of
> hardware on an OS that doesn't support VAX very well.

i do have a sparc2 that i could use.  however, the NVRAM is kaput, and i don't
have a new one yet.  if i coulda got the vax going, that woulda been real cool.
but i guess it wasn't destined to be.  it is getting NetBSD on it as we speak
though right now, and i don't think i'm going to be putting VMS back on that
one.

> Or is there more to it than just this?

the thought of having a VAX running as my *FIREWALL* has a significant amount
of appeal to me.  i've email Process in the hopes that they will grant me a
hobbyist license for PMDF, the OpenVMS based firewall software they have just
bought.  *that* would be cool.  ;)

-brian
-- 
"when it absolutely has to be there oh, sometime in the next few weeks"